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Each year, Midwest Mission works with Food For The Poor to help pre-position disaster relief supplies in 10 Latin American and Caribbean countries. Midwest Mission provides Student Kits, while other organizations provide blankets, hygiene kits, and water filters. This allows relief to quickly get to those in need when disaster strikes. Many times, transportation is disrupted during disasters; this alleviates that barrier.
Disasters make a traumatic impact on a person's life. Our Student Kits are sent as a way for children to handle their traumatic environment and process their situation. Coloring or journaling can be great outlets during times of high stress. Children can color on the coloring sheet prayer card, write in the notebooks, and get creative with the scissors and paper. It also provides them with resources they might have lost in the disaster, so they are able to attend school with the appropriate tools.
This shipment is headed to Coconut Creek, FL where Food For The Poor will begin preparing the relief supplies and then ship them to 10 countries who regularly experience devastating disasters.
At Midwest Mission, we try to be as efficient and effective as possible. We fit as much as we can on containers so as many supplies as possible reach those who need it. The container arriving to pick up the Student Kits had more room available than anticipated. This gave Brad Walton, Operations Manager, an idea: he could include more supplies to help with Hurricane Ian relief in Florida.
"The container was already heading to Florida, and we had space in the container and the stuff to fill it," Brad said. "I called Food For The Poor to see if they could accept supplies to help with Florida on this shipment as well. They thought it was a great idea, so we set up all the details and got ready to ship."
Our previous shipments for Hurricane Ian Relief were coordinated through Food For The Poor's domestic disaster relief program and Catholic Charities of Florida. Once this shipment arrives at Food For The Poor's head quarters in Coconut Creek, FL, Catholic Charities will take the supplies to Bonita Springs, FL.
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